Tay­lor praises ‘go-to’ bowler Fletcher

FAL­MOUTH, T relawny (CMC): WEST INDIES Women’s cap­tain, Stafanie Tay­lor, has praised spinner Afy Fletcher for trig­ger­ing the bat­ting slide that al­lowed the re­gional side to beat Eng­land women by 38 runs in the sec­ond one-day in­ter­na­tional (ODI) on Monday.

Eng­land Women were cruis­ing on 107 for four in the 37th over in pursuit of 149 for vic­tory at the Trelawny Multi-Pur­pose Com­plex, when Fletcher and De­an­dra Dot­tin shared seven wick­ets to spark a dra­matic bat­ting col­lapse.

Leg-spinner Fletcher started the come­back when she plucked out top-scorer Natalie Sciver for 27 in the 37th over and when she trapped Danielle Wy­att lbw for seven in her next over.

“Afy Fletcher ac­tu­ally gave us a chance in the game and over­all we did well. Afy has grown a lot,” said Tay­lor.

“Work­ing with Mr Ezra Morsely (as­sis­tant coach) she has re­ally de­vel­oped and she is one of my goto bowlers. When­ever I am in trou­ble and I need quick wick­ets, she is the per­son I can de­pend on.”

Fast-medium bowler Dot­tin, named Player of the Match, grabbed 4-19 from 6.4 overs and Fletcher col­lected 3-20 from 10 overs.

Dot­tin and Fletcher en­sured the vis­i­tors lost their last seven wick­ets for 17 runs in the space of 45 balls and sent them tum­bling from the prom­ise of 93 for three.

Ear­lier, Tay­lor hit the top score of 56 from 87 balls and was the glue that held her side’s in­nings to­gether be­fore they were dis­missed for 148 from their al­lot­ment of 50 overs, after choos­ing on a hard, slow pitch.

BAT­TING FIRST

“I was ac­tu­ally look­ing at some­thing over 200 runs, given that we were bat­ting first, and it was a good pitch to ac­tu­ally bat on,” said Tay­lor. “I don’t think the bat­ters ap­plied them­selves and I hope we go back to the draw­ing board and come good for the other game.” The re­sult meant that the home team has drawn level 1-1 in the se­ries of five matches, the last three of which will count to­wards the In­ter­na­tional Cricket Coun­cil (ICC) Women’s Cham­pi­onship. The Windies Women are cur­rently sec­ond in the ICC WC stand­ings on 20 points – 10 be­hind cur­rent ODI World cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia Women – and one ahead of Eng­land Women. The teams now re­lo­cate to Kingston for the fi­nal three matches of the se­ries, start­ing on Fri­day at Sabina Park. “We want to win all the games ... that’s the aim ... that’s what we are work­ing to­wards. We and Eng­land are pretty much close, we know it’s not go­ing to be easy. It’s a chal­leng­ing one, but I def­i­nitely think that if we work hard. We will def­i­nitely get some points,” said Tay­lor. “I think we need our two com­po­nents to go out there and fight for it. We def­i­nitely have to bat and bat prop­erly, and bowl and bowl good.” Stafanie Tay­lor